t came as no surprise that mobile would play an important role in the advertising that went on at Super Bowl 2014, but the popularity and success of location based marketing was considered to be a highly notable trend, this year. This data has now been released following the first massive advertising event of the year. Social media marketing had already been expected to play an important role, this year, and it certainly did. The Super Bowl ads were riddled with opportunities for viewers to take part in interactive campaigns. But it appears to be the location based marketing techniques …

Alex and Ani is rolling out mobile beacons in 40 of its retail stores to help consumers better understand the brand's line of jewelry products. In addition to rolling out the beacons in Alex and Ani's own retail stores, the brand is also working to implement the technology into department stores where the jewelry brand's products are sold. The iBeacon technology is powered by Swirl's mobile platform and consumer-facing application. "Alex and Ani offers a high 'touch' with our in-store experiences, which often involves lengthy dialogues on product education," said Ryan Bonifacino, vice president of digital strategy at Alex and …

Merchant Warehouse, a provider of payment technologies and merchant services, has announced it is bringing Isis SmartTap capabilities to the point-of-sale (POS) at Boston-based businesses. The program, which the company says is the first of its kind in the Boston area, gives small and mid-sized merchants the opportunity to deploy customized offers to new and prospective customers via the Isis Mobile Wallet through Merchant Warehouse's Genius Customer Engagement Platform. "The payments industry has been changing rapidly over the last few years, presenting significant challenges for smaller retailers to effectively compete with big-box stores," said Henry Helgeson, CEO, Merchant Warehouse.

Security and functionality gaps exist in beacon deployments at retailers and other early adopters, warns Mobiquity Labs, an applied tech lab set up by mobility firm Mobiquity. These gaps in monitoring, authentication and authorization could significantly degrade the benefits of the beacons, warns Mobiquity Labs. "Beacons are a low-cost piece of hardware--small enough to attach to a wall or countertop--that utilize battery-friendly low-energy Bluetooth connections to transmit messages or prompts directly to a smartphone or tablet," explains a report by Business Insider.

There's plenty of chatter that mobile is the key platform for emerging markets and while it is true that mobile adoption is growing, it isn't yet the dominant place for online commerce, according to new data. Messaging app Line began hosting flash sales for consumer brands back in December, and initial information from its pilot program in Thailand shows m-commerce is promising but has room to grow. The information has been released by aCommerce - the startup working with Line, which we profiled recently. Line has run six flash sales in Thailand. On each occasion, details of the product(s) on …

Tablets took over as the devices responsible for fueling the most mobile commerce last year and will continue to move mobile commerce going forward, according to a new study from Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin's new "Mobile Payments Market: Tablet Payments Surge as Overall Mobile Retail Sales Top $60 Billion" report looks at how mobile payments fared in 2013 to predict how the market will shake out in the next five years. The report also suggests how retailers should be approaching both smartphone and tablet initiatives.

Cond Nast's Glamour is rolling out a new mobile application and site that lets readers buy products straight from static magazine pages. Glamour's new Shop Glamour program includes both a responsive site - http://shop.glamour.com - and a free iPhone application. The marketing effort integrates both advertising and editorial content to activate the magazine. "I think that for us, mobile is increasingly becoming a pivotal platform and a huge way that readers come to us to discover fashion and beauty inspiration and then are able to take action on it is the last piece, and we feel Shop Glamour addresses that …

The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is implementing mobile commerce services in its Twickenham stadium. The system will help the RFU reduce queues and streamline payments at the UK's largest rugby stadium. This is Twickenham's first foray into m-payments as part of a wider RFU strategy to enhance the match day experience for fans. "We want match days at Twickenham Stadium to be as enjoyable as possible for fans," said Sophie Goldschmidt, chief commercial officer, RFU. "We're constantly looking for ways to improve the fans' experience by embracing new technologies and innovations.

We all assume that mobile commerce is big business in Asia-Pacific and that the region is light years ahead of Europe and the US in terms of mobile adoption. However if you dig deeper into the stats you notice that all is not quite as it seems, with huge disparities appearing across the different APAC nations. To find out a bit more about the state of mobile commerce and marketing in the region, I've rounded up several studies and surveys that reveal some interesting stats. This follows on from similar posts looking at mobile commerce in the UK and US. …

OpenTable, an online restaurant reservation service, has launched a new pilot program focused on mobile payments. The pilot program is meant to test the viability of using mobile payments as a way to allow consumers to pay for their meals quickly while dining out. This would allow them to, essentially, "skip" the check, so to speak. OpenTable believes that leveraging mobile commerce could help make restaurants more convenient and attractive to consumers that have become very reliant on their smartphones and tablets. The pilot program is currently restricted to San Francisco, California, but OpenTable plans to expand the program in …